Lesson Learned!

One morning, our dad was informing us on why bees swarm when Jared shouted: "Coyote!!!" We all twirled around in our chairs, trying to catch a glimpse of the long awaited predator. There it was, trotting a far distance away from us, a coyote. It was unconscious of the fact that its life was in danger. My dad ran to get his rifle from the bedroom (just in case) aimed, and fired! The bullet missed its target, and the coyote ran for its life finally realizing it was being hunted. It ran at what seemed like 15 miles and hour. Up into the tree covered hills.

Some of you might be wondering why we want this predator to die so badly. 

Two of our neighbors have chickens at the moment. We are planning to get some too. This coyote ate two from each neighbor. This--as farmers-- is not a good thing, for it is a danger to our animals. We actually believe there are two coyotes. Yes, they can eat goats too. So now that we did not kill this endangerment, we are all super bummed. Hoping that coyote comes around again. 

Today my dad came in and said that he slammed his finger on the container door. 

"My guts are oozing out!". This was said in a that's-so-cool way. I told him to wash his "guts" off and got the band aids out and ordered him to put on the antibacterial ointment. I wrapped the band aid around his injury trying very very hard not to look at it. I asked what happened and he said that we shouldn't leave the container door open because he found a mouse in there nestled inside one of our home depot boxes with a nest and everything. Great. I asked what he did. 

"I put it into the fire!". Of course. LESSON LEARNED.

Building Every Day

We received some stationary with our logo a few days ago. We will be using these to label the products that we sell. We also received business cards from Vistaprint to hand out to others willing to support our business. We will be selling honey, kale, eggs, and other crops. We are creating a system that is a little different than the CSA program. This process will take about two years, and we are very excited to begin soon.

Our land was hayed recently and there are hay bails scattered everywhere! Lots of prey are prowling for dead animals that might have been killed. We are trying to create our own bundles of hay using cardboard boxes with twine. It really works! There will be a lot of haying every now and then... 

Next Year

Pretty much everything we are going to grow depends on the fence that will come up in mid-July. Chickens, maybe goats, herbs, and orchards. So far, I am growing some flowers that I'll plant in the gutters/planters attached to the container. That's all we can grow now other than the kale because the elk don't want to eat flowers. 

After we get the fence up, finish mulching a path (semicircle), and till the soil, we'll grow fruit trees here. It was rather difficult to mow this area because there were lots of bumps and it was uphill in the direction that we mowed. 

We are planning to put up 6 or more pens for our goats and chickens to fertilize. We will be using our goats for milk, and chickens for eggs! We have tons of Mason jars, and hopefully we can use those to pickle some of our vegetables. 

Mouse 3 - Human 1

For the past several nights, I have heard rustling in the living area late at night.  We have been eating watermelon for fruit after dinner, so I presumed it was just one of my kids waking up, walking out to the hallway, and then walking to the bathroom to empty their bladders.  This happened for 3 nights in a row.  So one morning, during breakfast, I inquired, "Who keeps peeing at night?"

Both kids quizically looked at me like I was high, "We haven't been waking up to go pee!"

So... either I was hearing things, or there is some poltergeist, OR...

Mouse 1 - Human 0

That evening, I heard the rustling again.  So, I went out to the living area and guess what I see... but some mouse's butt in the air trying to climb into our trash can!  It eventually scattered and ran under the crack under the dishwasher.  My testosterone raced and anger flashed across my face.  How DARE some rodent come into my brand new house?!?!   I hovered outside the dishwasher, made an impromptu baton out of a pile of sheet music I had laying around and just waited.  After a few minutes, I realized this little guy was reticent to come out and meet his/her fate.  Clearly s/he needed some prompting.

So, I Googled "sounds that mice don't like" in a hope that I could use a noise to flush the critter.  I found the above annoying sound.  It's on a 29 minute loop.  Give it a try.  I have a feeling it's more of a ploy to annoy humans.  I maxed the volume on my phone speakers, pointed it towards where the mouse was hiding, and ran the sound for 15 minutes.  Then, I heard rustling behind me.  Wait... there were TWO rodents in the house?  Is there a family of these critters?!?  I whirled around, baton in hand, ready to deal some damage.  To my relief/dismay I saw my bleary eyed daughter walking towards me with her hands over her ears.  "What in the world is that horrible sound?" she moaned.  

I promptly stopped the audio and told Lauren to go back to bed.  Clearly round 1 went to the mouse.

The following day, I found some foam insulation I had laying around and crawled under the house.  I figured there must be some hole/crack this mouse found.  I found a few potential spots and decided to seal them up.  I pulled the rookie mistake of spraying the foam without gloves.  Foam got all over the place, and I used my bare hands to shove foam into some spots that the can applicator couldn't quite reach.  

I'm sure you're all saying to yourselves, "What a dunder head!  Doesn't he know foam sticks to flesh?"  

To my horror, when I ran my hand under the faucet, nothing happened.  The foam clung onto my hands tight.  I wished I had some acetone on hand, but alas I did not;  Since the store is a 30 minute drive away, buying some was not an option.  So, I ended up sitting in a hot bath for 2 hours slowly peeling away foam and skin.

Always use gloves when spraying foam insulation.  Ask me how I know.  Mouse 2 - Human 0

The house should have been effectively sealed.  There was no way for the mouse to come back now, right?  I went to sleep confident that the mouse wouldn't be coming back.

Mouse 3 - Human 0

So I woke up the next morning and saw that our friend left us a little present.  Actually, there were several little presents all over the place.  Perhaps I was taking this a bit personally, but I could have swore there were little pellets all over the place as if the mouse was marking its territory.

OK... this warranted the 30 minute drive into town. I bought a couple of mouse traps, baited with peanut butter, and tonight at 11 PM, I heard a satisfying snap.  Oh, human tenacity.  Fail fast, adapt, and overcome.  

Mouse 3 - Human 1

Using Our Resources

Our first crop of the season: kale! Daddy planted these a few weeks ago on top of the container, and put up the irrigation system this week. For some reason, this particular plant is much larger than the rest... 

These are the only edible plants that we can grow at the moment because we need to keep our crops out of reach from the elk. Hopefully we can plant flowers near the ground without that happening. I am germinating perennial, biennial, and annual flowers. It's kind of hard because I need to keep them in the shade and away from birds. They need to be watered twice a day at most, depending how dry they are. 

Using our new wood chipper, we are creating a path around our soon to be fruit orchard. This will hopefully minimize the large piles of wood hanging around our farm. This is surprisingly comfortable to walk on compared to pebbles and dirt.

This is why we need an elk fence

Looked out of the front door this morning and two elk stags were just calmly eating in our field.  They just casually stared at me and kind of looked at me and intimated, "What?" then calmly went back to chewing.  

Then behind them came the cows and calves.  Really, quite picturesque, but not ideal for a farm for elk to be eating your product.  

Should I tell him we have a dishwasher?

When we moved into the main house last week, we were eager to use the dishwasher (since the tiny house was strictly a manual affair).  We loaded it up with dirty dishes and pushed the "START" button. We had a Han Solo/Empire Strikes Back moment when he says, "Watch this!", punches the throttle for the hyper drive, and the system goes kaput.  Well wouldn't you know, we had a more mundane version of that cinematic moment (although I for one could have gone for some TIE fighters in hot pursuit). Nothing happened.  We all had a collective Wookiee roar of anguish (OK... last Star Wars reference) and pulled out the dishes and embarked on washing manually.  

We contacted the electrician, but in the meantime, we had to wash the dishes manually.  Since Jared has been doing less outdoor work than Lauren and I, we decided that the compromise was that he could do all of the dishes.  He agreed, but the duly asked, "How do I do the dishes?"  WHAT??? You mean in your whole 8 years of age, you've never once washed dishes?  He said no, and I had to sit with him and show him how to pre-soak the dishes, soap of the sponge, use the brush when necessary, and rinse/dry.  A few wet mishaps ensued, but by and large he got the hang of it fairly quickly.  

A week has gone by, and the electrician was able to finally fix our dishwasher (and a few other electrical issues).  During the past week though, Jared has really gotten into the groove of washing.  I am quite glad to see a little bit of work ethic building up in him.  So, when the electrician left, I sort of fibbed and told him, "Oh... the electrician was here to fix the range hood" (not a lie... just not the whole truth) "... keep washing those dishes!"

Wonder how long I can keep up the charade?

Setting in drip irrigation on the living roof

It hit 80 degrees here today, and no rain in sight. It was about time to clean up the neglected living roof anyway.  I had seeded some kale last month but did not bother with any maintenance,  so we got a few grasses intermingled.  We busted out the trusted stirrup hoe and stripped out most of the weeds.  Jared helped install the drip lines, and just in time. 

Turned on the water and let the parched kale take a sip.  Now that the drip is on a timer, we can worry a little less. Just need to be a bit more diligent about the whole weeding thing :) 

It's Only Gonna Get Hotter...

Daddy got a new wood chipper a while ago and he is planning to use it to get rid of the huge piles of wood on our farm. We are going to use the wood for paving the paths that we made. One of the paths go to our honey bees, another goes to our compost pile, and one goes to the container. We also got a new tiller to break up the soil for our plants. So far, we are growing kale on top of our container. Daddy just installed an irrigation system on top. Tomorrow, we plan on putting the rest of the planters up on the pallets that we hooked against the container's wall. Those would have berries and herbs. 

We went to Hunter Farms:  http://hunter-farms.com/      today and took a look at some of their goats and bunnies. Daddy's looking for some goats that we'll have when we get everything set up. We'll have them for dairy. We are also getting broilers and egg laying chickens. 

Weather out here feels like the high 80s when it is only in the high 70s. According to weather forecasts, it will only get hotter in the next two days... Nothing's stopping the elk from coming out to eat though. We are all anticipating the day that Daddy gets his hands on a hunting tag. ;)

Healthy brood

It has been a cold, wet spring on the farm. I was really worried that the bees might not make it. So color me pleasantly surprised to see one of my hives with so much brood throughout the frames. Just put on an extra brood box.  Grow bees, grow! 

Our own indentured servants!

Nice shirts! 

Our farm shirts from Vistaprint arrived.  The lettering might be a bit hard to read, but Lauren and Jared are both "Hualalai Farms Official Staff."  Credit goes to Jen for the logo placement and cheeky verbiage.

The cure for allergies?

So last year, when we spent our first summer on the farm, Jared wheezed and his skin looked like a pomegranate  (red, white, and bumpy). For the first week, I was really worried and was on the fence on getting him to urgent care.   The pollen and hay was wreaking havoc with his immune system.  But after the first week, he wheezed less and less, and his skin ever so slowly began to clear.  

I know immunotherapy can be controversial,  but  anecdotally, I have noticed that it does seem to yield results.  So upon our return to the farm this summer, I noticed that Jared started flaring up again. So, we started him mowing the lawn for a few minutes a day and slowly incremented his exposure to the outdoors. That plus some zyrtec seems to be doing the trick! 

The Farm

Our deck was installed recently! It covers the entire house with an exception of the front entryway. There are hundreds of these ant-like creatures with wings everywhere. I believe they are nesting under our deck...

A new herd of elk came by two days ago. There were about fifteen of them in total, and that's not much compared to the usual amount. There are herds with more than thirty! Last year there were lots of offspring galloping around with their parents. They were really cute. This herd fled to the hills when they spotted us taking pictures of them.

I recently found this tiny frog nested under a crevice in our container. I was climbing up the ladder that led to the top. I meant to weed the top bed. We are growing kale up there. That's when I spotted it. It had golden eyes that darted up and down as it looked at me. It stayed there even when I went over it. After coming back down, going to the house, eating dinner, coming back out, and making a fire, it was still there, planted in the same spot. I looked this morning and found that it had gone. I wonder how it got up there...

Our living roof has a new tenant!

While climbing up the ladder to the top of the living roof, guess who we spied living between the container top and the pond liner?  Our own new resident frog seems to like the protection the container and living roof provides, and we enjoy his/her company.  Now... how in the world did s/he manage to climb 9 feet and make it there in the first place?